Access to Unlocked Skills in PvE

Yup. This game was also designed where you couldn't save and load builds, couldn't change your secondary on the fly, etc. Guild Wars always evolves to give more freedom, which is good!

Because unlocking is based on the fact that you can't get all skills at once, right away. Makes you have to actually play with what you have. Helping that creativity you all go on about.

If it doesn't matter whether a person gets a skill sooner or later, since they'll just use a skill eventually, then why not stick say riposte or deadly riposte right at the beginning. Doesn't matter that you'd have just made all melee enemies in pve pointless from the get go. Sure you get it eventually (around the desert I think), but you get it later. Makes it feel like your character is growing, getting stronger. With this, you start like that. How's this going to encourage people to come back and put time into pve?

Then how about why if you can only use 8 skills at once, that you NEED all 1000 skills on every character you make? Enough to change a fundamental part of the GW system. Is that on topic?

Edit: And oh, if you think that someone who only has the skills he's learned from skill quests and trainers is equal to someone who has all skills unlocked is on the same lvl...
8 skills != 8 skills. It depends what the skills are.

And you will start like that. You seem to think that we are asking for UAX. Nope. Just the ability to use what we earned.

What will encourage them to come back? Fun! If you play a game for any reason besides fun, you should find a new game.

That's like arguing "Why have more than 8 skills per profession?" Sure, you could say limit each profession to the same 8 skills. But Guild Wars is based on experimenting with new builds and combinations. That's why you need the skills on your characters. And don't go adding words like "fundamental" when they aren't appropriate- the fundamental part of the GW system is that it is based on player skill and NOT grinding, which is what you are opposing.

No, not asking why you need all these skills on a character. I'm asking why you need them on ALL characters? If you got it already, you should have a pretty good idea what it can do. If you suddenly think of a good way to use it with some other class, then go buy it with that class. Why do you have to have it for all characters?

And it is fundamental. Player skill versus time. But that skill is in knowing and using the skills your character has. So yes, you should have the skills you need for each character. But again, why do you need it for ALL characters? How many of those skills can you honestly use to any effect at all outside of their primary classes?

Well, you wanted an argument as to why players can and should have easier access to already unlocked skills than having to play the game through again. ANet has already made a step towards that, in making available at skill vendors the non-elite skills you have already unlocked for 1000g each.

So we know that the original design (with earned skill refund points and all) was broken. They fixed it to fit the situation, that was then. But wait, aren't things different now?

That was when there was just one campaign, 4 character slots, and 6 classes.

We now have 3 campaigns, 8 (or more) character slots, and 10 classes.

That's a whole lot more possibilities and permutations. I'd say that is conclusive proof that things are different now. I'd say that we over here arguing for convenience are doing this because as the situation changes, so should the rules.

Hockey has continually altered the rules as time has gone by, so has football. I can tell you that any college football team would cream any 50's or 60's era Professional football team because of the changes in the players. Google the average weight of the Nebraska Huskers Front line, and say the 50's Cowboys. Nebraska easily beats them by half again just on sheer weight of their players. That required a change of the rules. Players were getting hurt, specifically Quarterbacks. That same analogy of change applies to GW. The game is not the same as when it started out 2 years ago.

Heck, if I do not like my warrior, why cant I make a new one with all the same stats since it will only be a change of looks? Is that so bad?

That leads to a slippery slope of "all characters are virtual". Hmmm, isnt that what they did with Heroes? Did that really break anything? Naaaah. It gave you more options, and more capability, to crush the AI. Mmmmmmm, the sweet smell of success.

So that is why ANet got rid of Refund points, and why they should get rid of 1 plat per skill. Things changed. What worked in Beta, did not work in the Retail release. What worked then will not necessarily work now.

Take PvP. PvP is all virtual, and they can create and delete characters and equipment at will. That is one extreme, of total convenience.

PvE does not have those options available, and must work to earn everything by labor and luck.

Will that stop me from helping out a friend when they are going through THK because I have done it before? Naaaah. I'm there.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

To put it simply:
Game Content = Things to Do * Ways to do them

Having skills unlocked is required to experience game content, if you only have a tiny subset of the skills, you're only experiencing a small fraction of the game content.

4 Letters.

GoLE

TabascoSauce makes good points. But changine how your face looks (while really screwing with any sense of RPing) is cosmetic. Giving skills effects the game itself. How would they make pve where they have to cater for the newbies with few unlocks, and the old players if they got full unlocks? It's already made pve horribly unbalanced for older players. It's only when you make a new character and try using all the meager skills you have to get by that there's any fun at all. Being able to stomp all pve with any character seems to take the fun out of it.

And I gladly help out anyone who needs a quest or mission done, but how many friends are going to be around when each and every character they make are going to rampage through pve? Cause it does get old after awhile.

Given free to practically every char with an ele secondary already.

I agree with that, but more skills = "ways to do them".
Giving them to all characters reduces = "things to do" though.
And after you've stomped all over pve with your new max power pve character, whats left in the "things to do". Well, drunkard and sweet tooth I suppose. But wouldn't this reduce game content if you didn't have to put work into building a new character?

You've subtracted 1 from your "things to do" list, you've added millions to your "ways to do them list". Doing THK as FC Fire Mes is a totally different experince to doing as an interrupt mes.

With regards to your "how many secondaries skills are required" comment - I'll use an assassin as an off the cuff example.
100 Primary skills
20 Scythe based builds
20 Bow based builds
20 Sword based builds
20 Hammer based builds
20 Axe based builds
30 Hex based builds
30 Secondary Self heals
10 Spell Interrupts
10 Damage enhancers
20 PBAoE skills
10 Knockdowns
20 Shouts
10 Signet based builds

340 Skills required without even trying for obscure builds.

I can't believe after all these pages you don't understand that having all skills will NOT make you stomp through PvE. I mean... wow. Having all skills gives no advantage over anybody who doesn't... for the fiftieth time.

So?

What about the hundreds of other possibly great combinations that have not been tried yet because of the archaic skill acquisition mechanic?

Good point made. There's a reason you see people in PvP running all sorts of crazy, obscure, effective builds, yet not in PvE- it's harder to experiment when you are so limited!

Good question, how would they make PvE where they have to cater for the newbies. That is the question that ANet has been asking.

None of these suggestions affects the newbie experience, because they need to unlock skills to have easier access. That part of your argument is resolved.

I'd say their answer was Heroes. It gave players a reason to get as many skills unlocked as they could, to allow the Heroes to be as much as they can be.

Your position seems to be that allowing experienced players the opportunity to have a more PvP-flexible skills experience in PvE would harm the game?

Let us use a specific example put forward, that non-elites would be cheaper, say half-price, to new characters if and only if you had unlocked the skill before. This is only one of the options put forward, but the song remains the same no matter, that the skills are easier to access if you have gotten them before.

That gives players the option of playing either way - you can get by with your fewer skills, and I can make a new NecroMonk and go to town without farming like crazy. Win / win.

Will I be bored? No, my goal is to open up the campaigns to allow my new character to play with guildies. I still play through the game, and have fun. And if that new NecroMonk is to have elites, then I have to get them the old-fashioned way.

So if the (regular) skills you had unlocked before were more easily available, then you would have less fun? Why? You get bored with easy things? Um, you have already said that the PvE experience is easy anyway. If it is easy either way, then it makes no difference when skills are available, and for how much gold.....?

Thx!
TabascoSauce

I'd also like to add one more reasonably crucial point.
The addition of heroes has resulted in less PUGs being formed.
Even when I join a PUG, quite often I prefer to take some hero monks with me because I know that I can rely on their build.
I'm less inclined to group with people when I know that their builds are inflexible due to a lack of unlocks.
Give more players this flexibility and you'll see people more willing to join PUGs as they can more effectively build teams.

There's nothing more frustrating than being a melee class on a mission that is condition heavy (lots of blind, poison, deep wounds, weakness etc.), only to discover that your 2 human monks haven't brought a single condition removal skill between them, because they haven't unlocked any yet.

Okay, so newbies may not know how to effectively use the skills they're given.
This is where multiplayer goodness comes into the game.
Veteran players (and there's hordes of them out there now after 2 years) can teach newbies which skills work best in which situations. And knowing that the newbies have access to these skills would only make this process quicker.

I still can't quite understand why ANet abandoned the concept of skills as mission and quest rewards.
I even think they should have gone farther with this concept and not only offered you a set skill for completing an objective, but offered you an unlock of your choice from that campaign's entire list.
Hell, even make it 1 for the mission and 1 for the bonus, or in the case of Factions and Nightfall, one for Normal, 1 for Expert and 1 for Masters.
Make that 1 for Primary and one for Secondary and we're cooking with gas.
Then allow players to unlock further secondary skills by playing the mission again with a different secondary class and you're getting a VERY good synergy.

Add this on top of allowing all of your other characters access to skills you've already unlocked (and yes, I am including elites in this; make the Skill Hunter title track an account based one already godsdammit!), and the end result is a more balanced game where everyone has access to the necessary tools in order to compete on a level playing field, whether that be PvE or PvP.

Hmm.... There are a few pretty good suggestions in here.

Personally, I think ArenaNet should allow PvE characters who have ascended and completed a campaign to access all unlocked skills for that campaign, except elite skills.

I agree w/ this 100%

though I would say that making the pool of skills you have to choose from change as you progress through missions would be fair.

Maybe they should make a way for PvP characters to do PvE missions that the person has already done. Like the Zaihen’s challenge(sp?) but you can select PvE missions everyone in your party has already been to. Including missions you are at but have not yet completed for the sake of testing certain builds, practicing the run, etc.

Outline for me the chronological timeline of the story, in reference to the locations you visit and you'll find my basic layout to be correct.
Not to say a player cannot deviate from this path at his/her own choosing. Certainly prophecies is more free in this aspect...Factions/Nightfall is not.

What I want, I've outlined on page 3.
I want a compromise, since i understand your position and thoroughly sympathize.

What a "reasonable amount of content" is debatable.

What percentage of the game is the main storyline, the main quests, and side quests?
What number of skills is considered reasonable, and which is not?
How many casual PvE players actually go outside a basic build?
How much of PvE is actually about acquiring skills?
How many missions have certain skill requirements?

And certainly grinding for thousands of hours is an exaggeration. Im at 18 months, and i only have 2300 hours in. The only classes i do not have good skills and builds for are Ritualist and Elementalist since im caught up in getting obsidian armor for my Ranger..which btw is a grind i chose to do.

*sigh* here we go again.

Refund points are irrelevant to the argument. Their removal and change to the system affects only individual characters.

Refund points were a flawed and exploitable concept and although i agree with its removal, i think the new application of a gui based re-spec is kinda dumb.

Balthazar Points do not affect individual characters either. They affect only PvP, and in fact only add more options to grind to the game. Balthazar point unlocking skills did not affect individual characters (Until they allowed you to buy all unlocked skills at any trainer, and Heros could access those skills...another set of broken concepts).

The addition of Balthazar points imo, is stupid, since they do not contribute to anything other than the seperation of PvP and PvE.

======================
To conclude.
From what I've learned this boils down to a things.

1) Some players expect to have access to certain amounts of content.
2) Some players do not want to have to unlock content multiple times.
3) Some players do not like anything about PvE other than playing around with builds and skills.

These basic concepts alone are reasonable and sound. However applying them to this argument, that being "Access to unlocked skills in PvE", simply do not hold up.

1) Almost all content in the game is restricted but is available as the character progresses. Gaining some of this content is as simple as uncovering the map, or buying a skill, or finishing a quest or mission.

Some content even requires more explicit circumstances such as Favor or a ferry.

Acquiring skills is accessible already. There is nothing holding you back other than gold and skill points (and ive pointed out that it should be lowered in cost).

2) There needs to be a clear differentiation between characters and accounts that players need to understand. "Unlocking" Skills/Mods/Runes via balthazar faction, purchasing, and identifying do no contribute physical usable items or skills to the character.

"Unlocking" for an account is completely different from buying a skill for a character.

3) Thats your preference. But i dont see how your playing style preferences should be enough to warrant any change in the game, especially if changing the game to suit your needs is counter-intuitive to basic RPG game design and basic game design in general.

I could just as easily say that I only play as a Warrior and thats my preference Thats the only way i play and the game should stop making mesmer enemies since it makes my gameplay style a lot harder to do.

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I think Im done with this thread, its getting boring and repetitive. Other than the idea about missions rewarding you with skills, theres nothing interesting, new or convincing being discussed.

The only fun ive had is with mythics, since he based his argument on the GW mantra of "skill > time spent".

You could say im just a simulationist.

So, with the exception of kazjun, everyone who has posted here in the last 40 posts or so is in total agreement with the OPs statement of the problem, quoted here:

We are not debating whether there is a problem, what we are debating about is the resolution of said problem. It is impossible to disprove the statements above, since we all have played the game and know how long it takes to get even a simple majority of skills captured. It is not a trivial task, as it is in PvP.

Editorial comments aside, the game is built to disallow easy skills re-acquisition in PvE. I have always wondered about that, since there is no negative to making those "reasonable" amount of skills easier to acquire.

Your milk will still be in your fridge if skills are easier to re-acquire.

If anyone has negatives, other than the same old tired "This is the way it is now" mantra, or semantic-based argumental avoidance of "what does reasonable mean", then please speak up.

So now we can move on to productive debate, as in what would be the way to solve the issue.

Is Mythics still here? Would half or quarter price skills at the vendor solve your problem?

Thx!
TabascoSauce

It seems to me that there are several ways to solve the issue:

-Once your character reaches ascension or the factions/nightfall equivalent, all unlocked skill are usable.
-Once your character reaches ascension or the factions/nightfall equivalent, all unlocked skill for your secondary professions are usable.
-Buy skills in bulk, such as having the option to buy a spell individually or buy all healing prayer skills you have unlocked for a lower price.
-Reduce/Remove the Gold or Skill Point requirement for obtaining skills.

Personally, I think secondary professions are the biggest deal. Your primary should only have a little over a hundred skills, but thanks to secondaries, there are over a thousand of skills to learn and combine- that's a lot.

Personally... I would like to see it setup that once you reach 200 attribute points, you have access accross the board. (pri/sec)


For a chapter 1 character this means doing both the 15 point quests near the end.

For chapters 2 and 3 (both are designed for high end play, so the 15 point quests are actually on the starter islands) this would mean you have done both quests and THEN leveled up to level 20.

(typically lvl 20's in chapter 1 have not yet done either of the quests. assuming you ascend around lvl 17/19)


This way it basically becomes - hit level 20, get your skills. (excepting of course those few chapter 1 characters that have yet to do the 15 point quests)

Maybe we should make it that each new PvP toon has to earn its unlocks with money or gold & faction points AND its rank. No more 30 second old toon to try out a crazy new build idea with all unlocked skills (currently available). No more Rank7 each toon is separate. (Just cuz your R/Nec was an R7 doesn't mean you'll be any good as an E/A, he'll have to earn his own ranking)

*waits for the PvP is supposed to be like that(about skill...see R/Nec comment above) , PvE is about character development BS.*


EDIT: Like in other threads about this...there are alot of good points towards having this change. There needs to be something done. Hopefully like storage and other things we will see it happen.

Now THAT is an idea I like!

Also: skill quests.

The idea of having skills quests where you can select the award would be interesting (or maybe collectors? Who reward you with skills instead of weapons you don't want? Which actually carries through the 'purchasing' thing that so many people seem to be insistent upon)